Like Sheep Gone Astray (38 page)

Finally, she picked up the phone and dialed slowly.

“Hello.” The simple crisp baritone of Reggie's voice awakened a subdued longing in her.

“I just want to be happy. That's all.” Terri's voice was weak, worn as she uttered her hopelessness into the receiver.

“Terri, is that you?”

“I don't know what to do anymore about anything.” She was beyond tears, her eyes as dry as the breath in her words.

“Terri,” Reggie's voice was soft and soothing through the phone, barely above a whisper. “This past week has been terrible for you. Anthony ought to be ashamed for putting such a lovely woman as you through all this.”

“Reggie, I just found out that I'm pregnant.”

“Oh? Oh.” Reggie was quiet only for a second. “Terri, you do not need to think or worry about anything right now. Let me handle that. What you need is some relaxation, some head-to-toe pampering. That's it. I'm sending you to a day spa, the finest on the East Coast. I want you to do nothing right now but relax and enjoy the royal treatment a queen like you deserves. Let your loyal subjects deal with the dirty work. Where are you?”

“At work.” She had no energy to fight his demand.

“Is there somewhere you can safely leave your car? I'm going to send a limo to get you and take you to the airport. First-class service all the way.”

“I'll drive to Cherisse's.”

“Then it's done. Let me make some calls and finalize arrangements. All you need to know is that a limousine will pick you up from Cherisse's condo at two o'clock. Enjoy these next few days of pampering. You do not need to make any deep decisions right at this moment. Let me take care of you.”

“How do I explain this to my partners ? I have so much work to do.”

“When you're self-employed, you answer to no one but yourself.”

“Reggie, I'm not sure that—”

“Uh, uh, uh.” Reggie cut in. “You are not to be thinking or trying to figure anything out. Let me handle everything. Just remember, two o'clock, Cherisse's condo, limousine.” A dial tone filled Terri's ear.

For the first time in her adult life, Terri laid aside every conviction she held about independence, self-determination, and standing on her own two feet. She was tired and nauseous, confused and drained. She wanted nothing more than to find a place to rest her hurting heart and head. Reggie's arms were wide open.

Fingering the keys to her new Lexus, she left, speaking to no one, looking forward to the promise of rest that would begin in Cherisse's parking lot.

“Kent, slow down!” Mona gripped her seat belt with both hands. “I know you want to get back to Shepherd Hills as soon as possible, but you might be able to do your job better if you're alive!”

They were speeding down Interstate 95, weaving in and out of traffic—when it was actually moving. Kent cursed rush hour, wondering if everyone was heading for the same place he was.

“Get out of the fast lane!” He honked at a car that was cruising just below the speed
limit.
The driver honked back.

“Darling, how are you going to explain this to the cop who will stop you?”

“I have a badge. I'll tell them it's an emergency. I need to close a case. They'll understand.”

“What I don't understand is why you have to do this. Why can't you just call someone down in Shepherd Hills and give them the information you feel is so life-and-death?”

They just missed clipping an SUV. Mona stifled a scream.

“I told you, I don't know where my cell phone is and we don't have time to stop. And even if I did make a phone call, I have no way to prove what my gut is telling me.”

“What is your gut telling you that's making you risk our lives so greatly?” Mona's knuckles were white as she re-clenched the New Testament in her lap.

“Well, for starters, I think I've been investigating the wrong people, and if I'm right, there are at least a couple of people down there who are in grave danger.”

“Danger of what?”

“That's what I'm afraid of. Oh, shoot!” Kent put his foot on the brake as the cars in front of him came to a complete stop. Orange construction signs dotted the paved expanse before them.

“At this rate, we won't be home until late this evening.” He fingered through the faxed papers with Sheriff Malloy's marks over Anthony's print, and then tossed them to the backseat.

“I don't know if that will be in time.”

Kellye Porter sorted through the basket full of dark-colored clothes. The sheets and towels in another basket were newly folded, and one of the two loads of whites was in the dryer. Four loads in three hours. Bernard would have been all over her; she smiled to herself. In the early days of their marriage, he used to take freshly cleaned and air-dried clothes, hold them to his nose, and compare the captured scent of sunshine to his own captured sunbeam. “You are a ray of light that has refreshed my life,” he would whisper into her ear while nuzzling her neck. Years later, even after she finally convinced him that an electric dryer would make life easier for both of them, he still called her Sunshine every time he saw her washing clothes.

It was the day of his funeral.

Kellye looked at the white dress she had picked for the occasion hanging on a wire hanger near the dryer. Pressed and starched, it looked like angel clothes suspended in mid-air. The thought made her wonder how many angels he had seen in heaven already.

“Sunshine is always bright, not dark,” he had whispered to her so many times from his sickbed, their fingers intertwined, as a comfortable silence became their daily conversation. He made her promise never to wear black at his funeral. She never liked or wanted to continue the talks he initiated about his home-going service or the life she would live once he was gone, but now she found herself engrossed in every written and remembered detail, his final wishes followed as much as possible to a tee. Dwelling on his requests surrounding his departure gave her a sense of connection to the man she could no longer hold. She could not embrace his body, but his desires could embrace her. Knowing she was honoring his last hopes seemed to keep him alive just a little longer.

She was just about to put the last load of clothes in the washing machine when her fingers brushed against the crumpled edges of stiff paper.

“What's this?” Her fingers dug into a pocket, then pulled a terry-cloth garment out of the pile for inspection. It was the robe of her sister-in-law, Mabel.

The stiff paper turned out to be an old photograph. Kellye's fingers shook as she slowly smoothed down the edges of the worn picture. It had been extraordinarily difficult to go through all of Bernard's pictures earlier. She had let Mabel pick out the obituary photo. She must have missed this one, Kellye concluded. She blinked back a tear, and as the serious-looking faces came into focus she brought the picture closer to her eyes. These faces looked familiar, and she felt like kicking herself when no names came to mind. A younger, headstrong Bernard stared back at her from the center of the picture, flanked on either side by equally young and headstrong men. One face in particular troubled her as she searched for a name.

“I was just looking for my robe.”

Kellye had not noticed Mabel coming down the basement steps. The older woman came beside her and loosened the maroon robe from Kellye's grip.

“Something wrong?” Mabel could barely get out her words.

“I know what it is,” Kellye said, suddenly smiling. “It's the eyes.” She pointed to the picture. “This man here looks just like a young minister at my church, Anthony. Real nice young man. You met him, Mabel. He was here Saturday. If I didn't know better, I'd say this man could pass for his father.” She was still smiling as she pointed quickly at the photo before tossing a dirty dish towel into the washing machine.

“If you didn't know better?” Mabel knew instinctively she should have left it alone, but she wanted to make sure Kellye was not onto anything.

“Yeah, I know, it's amazing how everyone has a twin out there. I guess Anthony's was in another generation. That picture looks like it was taken before I even met Bernard, back when he was still living in Sharen.”

Mabel's smile and caution faded as she snatched the picture from her and clenched it in her fist.

“So you really don't remember him?”

“Remember who, Mabel?” Sister Porter did not seem bothered by Mabel's sudden change of mood. She turned the dial on the washer and poured a scoop of laundry detergent in the tub.

“His father. Anthony's father. You really don't remember who he was?”

Kellye was heading back to the basement stairs, her white dress draped over an arm.

“Anthony's father? Why would I know his father? I remember his step-dad, Harold, but beyond that I—” Kellye froze mid-step as she threw a hand to her mouth. She looked back toward the photo and then again at Mabel. The anger in Mabel's eyes was smoldering and unmistakable.

“My Jesus!
He
was Anthony's father? He was Anthony's father.” Disbelief and confusion locked into her face as she looked pityingly at her sister-in-law. “Mabel,” she whispered between her fingers, “are you still holding on to that after all these years? I wonder if Anthony knows that—”

“Leave it alone, Kellye.” Mabel's voice was low, almost threatening. “It's almost all taken care of. Please, just leave it be.”

“But what difference does it m—”

“Just leave it be. We have a funeral to get ready for today.”

“You're right, Mabel. But it seems to me that a casket is not the only thing that needs to be buried.” Kellye rushed up the steps with fresh tears in her eyes. It wasn't just grief anymore. It was grief plus. Something was terribly wrong. She felt it. She knew it. But trying to talk to Anthony would be too ambitious a goal to accomplish on this heavy day. She would call him tomorrow. If that man in the picture really had been Anthony's father, he had the right to know, she figured. Maybe that was the information Bernard had been trying to tell Anthony. She sighed in relief as she remembered that she had honored one of Bernard's last wishes. That box in the attic, she'd seen to it that Anthony received it. Anthony already knows the whole story, she assured herself.

But even as she went through the dreaded duty of getting dressed for her late husband's funeral, she could not shake a nagging feeling that everything was not okay.

“I'll talk to him tomorrow,” she murmured, trying to calm herself as she stared at her white-clothed reflection in the bedroom-door mirror. “I'll talk to him tomorrow and make sure he knows the whole story. Tomorrow will be fine. If Anthony has spent the last twenty-nine years not knowing about his father and what he did to the residents of Sharen, what difference will one more day make?”

It was not until she, Mabel, and Denise were sitting in the black limo from Winston's Funeral Home on their way to Second Baptist Church that she realized something else was bothering her.

“Mabel,” Kellye whispered from behind the paper fan and white handkerchief she was holding, “do you still have that picture on you?”

The dull clink of the elevator signaled its destination. The sixth floor of the building at 9705 Perkins Street. Gloria waited for the doors to slide open, and shrank back when they did. The sixth floor was an open dumping ground; chairs, trash, and furniture were spread across the large floor like the skeletons at an ancient ruin. Her heart beat faster as she tried to adjust her eyes to the dim light offered only by the erratically placed windows of the warehouse building.

She checked her watch; it was already a quarter past one. That gave her only a few minutes before she had to report back to Councilman Banks's office. He'd promised to come here himself after he finished with his session down at city hall later in the day. Maybe she should have listened and waited. She held back a scream as a wad of papers shifted in a near corner. Rats. She knew the sound.

“Don't have much time, so I better work fast to find something.” She checked her purse for the name she had scribbled down at the Office of Public Records and Recording. Razi.

“There's got to be something here that explains why this person would want this suite and what he or she is doing in it.”

She quickly scanned the room, letting her eyes do the walking before her feet began the tour. This would have been a good time to be rid of those pesky extra pounds. She frowned to herself. Covering her nose and clenching her purse, she darted through cobwebs and coughed in dust as she began a quick trot around the massive open suite.

At an upturned desk near a window, she noticed something she had not seen anywhere else in the room. Order. She stepped semi-athletically over some broken shelves, forging a path to the wooden hutch. A telephone and a stack of papers sat atop it, and a pen lay on the floor. A quiver of nervousness edged up her spine as she moved closer to investigate.

The window offered a mini flood of light onto the work space. Gloria looked out through the glass pane at a spectacular view. She could see most of Shepherd Hills from where she stood—trees, buildings, homes, land sprawled out for miles. She had never realized that the county was true to its name, hills and valleys dictating development.

She could also see unused, weed-filled railroad tracks just beneath the building. The warehouse sat on a dead end. She closed her eyes for a brief second, trying to imagine the area as it had been decades before, busy with blue-collar industry, loud, smelling like sweat, smoke, and the other stenches of hard labor. She opened her eyes and saw the desolation that had claimed the area. Even at one-thirty in the afternoon, no traffic, no pedestrians, no hints of life were around. Had she read her watch right? She needed to put a move on it.

A quick shuffling through the papers left her wondering where to begin with her jotted notes. Although there was no clear contact or identifying information on Razi, she was starting to feel like she was merely scratching the surface of Razi's wealth. Who or whatever it was, its ownership extended far beyond the sixth floor of the old warehouse. Razi's name was attached to the sales and utilities bills of several businesses and structures, including the steelworkers' hall that had been transformed into the Diamond Mount where Friday's banquet had been held. Razi held major shares of AGS Railroad, which was responsible for the expansion of the Stonymill light rail line. Many houses, lots, buildings—most related somehow to the now defunct Toringhouse Steel and its branch-offs—all had attachments to Razi.